You might call it a nascent civil rights movement in response to the new Jim Crow. About 150 people gathered Saturday morning at St. Peter Baptist Church in Glen Allen to discuss mass incarceration, the war on drugs and their effect on the black community. The Virginia Alliance Against Mass Incarceration has scheduled forums Wednesday in Richmond’s East End.

“The endgame is just public awareness through the community and churches,” with the hoped-for result of influencing legislation in the General Assembly, said Jesse Frierson, executive director of the alliance.

The gospel of this movement is Michelle Alexander’s best-seller, “The New Jim Crow,” which details the rising mass incarceration of minorities. The author argues against policies that swelled the U.S. prison population from 300,000 to more than 2 million in less than three decades — the world’s highest incarceration rate.

Alexander’s lectures in Norfolk and Richmond in 2011 served as a catalyst for the alliance.

The toll of drug offense-fueled incarcerations on the black community has even conservative churchgoers exploring all options.

During a discussion last year at a local church, an impromptu show of hands had one-half of the audience in favor of the decriminalization, control, regulation and taxation of currently illegal drugs, Frierson said. One-quarter of the audience was opposed, and the remainder wanted more information.

“That, frankly, was surprising to everybody,” he said.

Of keen interest to the alliance is the restoration of voting rights for 450,000 disenfranchised felons in Virginia. Despite the support of Gov. Bob McDonnell, a measure to automatically restore the vote to nonviolent felons who have finished their sentence was killed in the state legislature. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the presumptive Republican nominee for governor, has appointed an advisory panel to explore options under the state constitution on the restoration of voting rights.

Cuccinelli and Terry McAuliffe, the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor, were invited to Saturday’s event but did not attend. But McAuliffe, in a letter to the attendees, said “unfair and unequal enforcement of our drug laws is not an argument or a talking point; it is a fact.

“Study after study shows that while drug use is similar among different ethnic groups, young African-American men and young Latino men are arrested and incarcerated at dramatically higher rates than young men from other groups. This is devastating communities and hurting our society.”

But as McDonnell’s case shows, a sympathetic governor hardly guarantees results in the legislature. Or as Del. Joseph D. Morrissey, D-Henrico, said Saturday: “Nobody ever lost an election by being tough on crime.”

St. Peter, on Mountain Road in northern Henrico County, is the church of Kemba Smith Pradia, a leading advocate in the fight for voting rights of former offenders. Her franchise was restored last year by McDonnell, more than a decade after she served six years of a federal prison sentence for drug-related offenses. She was granted clemency in 2000 by President Bill Clinton.

The audience viewed selected scenes from the documentary “The House I Live In,” a critique of the U.S. criminal justice system whose producers include Danny Glover, John Legend, Brad Pitt and Russell Simmons.

Part of the film showed the toll methamphetamine has exacted on white, jobless rural residents in America’s heartland, as drug use and illegal activities fill the economic void. The impact of crystal meth in those communities was likened to the effect of crack cocaine on black urban communities in the 1980s.

During the wide-ranging panel discussion that followed, state Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico — who sat on a panel with Morrissey, Pradia and Henrico Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor — said the counterproductive war on drugs coincided with the “world of no.”

First came “Just Say No,” the Reagan administration’s response to drug use. Later came “no parole,” Gov. George Allen’s politically popular policy. That was followed by “No Car Tax,” a bumper sticker that helped land Jim Gilmore in the Executive Mansion after Allen.

Parole abolition helped fuel prison construction. And the car tax reduction blew a hole in the state budget that McEachin says has hurt K-12 education funding.

Virginia, in an attempt to fill empty prison beds, began importing inmates from as far away as Hawaii. A new $105 million correctional center in Grayson County has sat empty for 2½ years because of a lack of money and the state’s declining prison population. Other correctional facilities have been closed.

Meanwhile, prisons in economically bereft communities have become as valued for job creation as for incarceration. Which begs the question: What’s driving criminal justice policy?

Conversations on that and other issues “are taking place in Baptist churches across Virginia,” Frierson said. “This is where it starts. It starts with us.”

Following the success of their initial series last summer, a coalition of civil rights groups is partnering again for a 10-city tour of Virginia to raise awareness around justice issues that affect people with criminal records, and to provide direct services. Called the Mobile Justice Tour, the event re-launches on Saturday, December 14, with a focus on three key issues: civil rights restoration for citizens with felony convictions, removing questions about an applicant’s criminal background from initial employment forms, and sentencing reform to end mass incarceration in Virginia.

Host organizations for the Mobile Justice Tour include Resource Information Help for the Disadvantaged (RIHD); Bridging the Gap in Virginia; Virginia Organizing; Advancement Project; and Justice Policy Institute. The tour’s second go-around, however, is fueled by ordinary citizens – college students, members of church groups and other individuals across Virginia – who requested additional stops in their cities.

“The first Mobile Justice Tour was so successful, it inspired everyday Virginians to reach out to us and proactively bring this information and these resources to their own communities” said RIHD Executive Director and tour co-moderator Lillie Branch-Kennedy. “Last time, in city after city, we found so many people were simply unaware of laws and policies that can empower them. From the new process for automatic voting rights restoration, to the statewide momentum toward ‘ban the box’ employment application reform, folks had no idea about available alternatives for changing their lives. This tour empowered people just by providing the information, and we look forward to hitting the road again.”

At each stop of the tour, legal and policy experts will discuss:

· Restoration of Rights: There are two ways for people with felony convictions to get their rights back, depending on whether one’s conviction is classified as “nonviolent” or “violent.” The MJT will explain how to register and apply for both processes, as well as discuss recommendations for further streamlining these policies so they can reach more impacted people.

· “Ban the Box” Employment Application Reform: Since the first Mobile Justice Tour, the governments of two more cities, Petersburg and Virginia Beach, have passed policies to remove the question about an individual’s criminal history from the initial employment application. The MJT will advocate for other Virginia governments and private businesses to “Ban the Box” and reduce barriers that prevent our community members from finding work.

· Mass Incarceration & Successful Re-Entry: Even as crime has decreased in Virginia, the state’s drug violation policies, as well as its approaches to sentencing and parole, have led to a mass incarceration crisis of crowded jails and prisons. The MJT will advocate for solutions including a reduced focus on drug offenses, increasing the threshold for Virginia’s grand larceny felony (to account for inflation) and reinstating parole. Policy experts will also propose prisoner re-entry legislation for the 2014 General Assembly session, including prisoner educational, therapeutic and vocational rehabilitation.

“With a new governor coming into office next month, and the start of a new legislative session, this round of the Mobile Justice Tour is also an opportunity to illuminate specific policies that demand action from our elected officials,” said Richard Walker, founder and CEO of Bridging the Gap in Virginia and co-moderator of the tour. “With the 8th highest jail incarceration rate in the nation, and a felony disenfranchisement law that continues to strip the right to vote from more than 370,000 Virginians who have completed their sentences, Virginia’s justice system needs an overhaul. It is our hope that Governor-elect McAuliffe will show leadership on these issues to end mass incarceration and help reintegrate individuals back into our communities.”

Attorney General Eric Holder this week called on states to do away with arcane laws that prohibit more than 6 million felons, most of whom are people of color, from voting in a speech at Georgetown University Law Center. "Those swept up in this system too often had their rights rescinded, their dignity diminished, and the full measure of their citizenship revoked for the rest of their lives," Holder said in the speech. "They could not vote."

Currently, four states disenfranchise for life those convicted of felonies, and seven states permanently disenfranchise those with at least some kind of criminal convictions. Only two states, Maine and Vermont, allow those convicted of crimes to vote without restrictions.

Holder characterized these state policies as the remnants of the racist Jim Crow system in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War, in which states enacted laws to control and oppress people of color oand to keep them from voting.

"It is important to remember that these laws disenfranchising people with criminal convictions have some of their roots in some of our country's most shameful past and serve to prevent communities of color from translating their numbers into a free and fair and accurate percentage of the voting population," said Myrna Pérez, deputy director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice. "It is an important recognition of the fact that goals of reintegration are not furthered by having people who cannot participate in our body politic."

According to a 2009 Brennan Center study, the restoration of voting right to felons would not only contribute to a more robust democracy and the advancement of civil rights, but also would aid law enforcement and ensure fair and accurate voter rolls by relieving the administrative problems that accompany disenfranchisement polices.

"The act of voting is pregnant with so many good virtues that it totally stands to reason that people who engage in those good virtues are going to be people who are more successful when they are reintegrated," Pérez said.

But the states don’t have to adhere to Holder’s calls for change because state law sets the rules by which people can vote, which has caused the Obama administration great consternation on other voting rights issues such as voter identification laws, which have been shown to prevent people of color and the poor from going to the polls. Holder, in August 2013, called for the elimination of mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.

Since Holder’s Tuesday speech, Republican leaders have indicated they are not willing to budge on their state policies, with Frank Collins, a spokesman for Florida Gov. Rick Scott, telling The New York Times that Holder’s speech "has no effect on Florida’s Constitution, which prescribes that individuals who commit felonies forfeit their right to vote."

And the idea that Holder’s speech is simply scratching at the surface of the issue to pay lip service to civil rights and mass incarceration without seriously addressing the problems certainly holds water for some. Bruce A. Dixon, managing editor of theBlack Agenda Report who also serves on the state committee for the Georgia Green Party, said the speech was another indicator of what he called the black political establishment’s complacency with issues of mass incarceration.

"Their concern with the issue is like drive-by deep. If they can get away with making a few pronouncements, and keeping people on the hook so that they’ll line up and vote for the Democrats again in the next year, than that’s all they’ll do," Dixon said. "They don’t really have any skin in the game in any important way . . . they’re not trying to shrink the numbers of people in prison."

Dixon pointed to the track record of political officials, like Holder, who he says have done little to rein in organizations like the National Association of Assistant US Attorneys, which has issued statements defending policies widely held to contribute to the mass incarceration of people of color.

"If Holder and his bosses really meant to do anything about mass incarceration they could make heads roll among these assistant US district attorneys, or they could engage in some public rhetoric against them to set the table for a national discussion of this stuff," Dixon said. "It’s really not just Eric Holder; it’s the entire black political class."

One sure route to enfranchise felons would be to pass the Democracy Restoration Act, cosponsored by Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) and Representative John Conyers (D-Mich.). The bill would restore the right to vote to American citizens who are released from prison or serving probation sentences, but the bill has languished since it was introduced in 2009.

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is drafting a somewhat similar bill, the Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act, for restoration of voting rights for those convicted of nonviolent felonies. Rand opposes disenfranchisement law in Kentucky, which is among the states barring voting rights from felons for life.

Dixon argued for an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee the right to vote to all. "Once you make the right to vote a Constitutional right, then that means no county court and no state government can make up laws that will impede it unless they fit federal guidelines. It also means that there will be uniform standards nationwide for how votes are counted and how elections are run."